We’ve had a great time learning new skills and sharing our experiences with you in our See it. Try it. Love it! posts! Getting familiar with new techniques has been humbling for us all, but it’s been truly inspiring to branch out and challenge ourselves in different ways. Now that we’ve spent some time with our projects, we’ve all reached our own verdicts about the skills we’ve learned.

Jen picked up Tunisian entrelac fairly easily. Her only doubt when she began was about her hook size, and after trying two smaller sizes, she decided she likes the results best with the first hook she chose. Although Tunisian entrelac works up a bit slower than other crochet projects, Jen’s love for the amazing Autumn Entrelac Shawl is encouraging her to keep on stitching! She has also come up with a few other fun projects to create using this technique.

Check out our works in progress!

Kathy is getting the hang of the knit stitch and can finish a row of knits in a heartbeat! Her frustration sets in when she needs to incorporate purling into her work, so she is considering making a garter scarf or dishcloth like many of us did when we first started. After that, she is eager to try the purl stitch once again. Now that she has finished about 6″, the beautiful pattern in her Palisades Scarf has started to emerge, inspiring Kathy to eventually master both knitting and purling.

Yarn time!

Danielle is excited about how quickly her Charcoal Neckwarmer is working up! She’s a pro at the single and treble crochet stitches, and now that she understands these two, she is confident that she could easily get the hang of other stitches as well. She is still experimenting with different ways to hold her hook and yarn so she can comfortably maneuver them, but she consistently finishes a couple rows per day because she loves the lacy look of her project so much.

The Ocean Breeze Placemats and Coasters have really sparked my interest in Tunisian crochet! The stripey effect created by changing colors on the left side is so cool, and I now understand why I kept losing stitches when I first started (the last stitch of the forward pass was hiding from me). After learning to change colors in the middle of a row, I’m wondering if my new skills would help me learn to knit intarsia. Do I spy another See it. Try it. LOVE it! in our future?

We hope our experience has inspired you to tackle that technique you’ve been thinking about! If you need a little bit more motivation, check back with us soon because we’ll be featuring a GIVEAWAY for all of the brave crafters who are ready to expand their knitting or crochet skills.

All of us here at the Love of Knitting and Love of Crochet office have been eager to learn some new skills as we See it. Try it. LOVE it!, and we finally had a chance to sit down and test the waters.

After picking our projects and yarn, we planned a special “yarn time” so we could help each other as we learned.

Testing the waters of our new crafting endeavors

This yarn time was not nearly as chatty as usual because we were all concentrating on holding our tools and creating each stitch. We made a tiny bit of progress on our projects, and when we got a bit more comfortable we began chatting about the challenges we were experiencing. Maybe I should just admit it – that’s a nice way of saying we were whining! 🙂

Jen’s first few base triangles

Jen, everyone’s knitting and crochet lifeline, is making the Autumn Entrelac Shawl. She had a hard time figuring out where to put the hook for the Tunisian crochet M1. With knitting, there are distinct places to insert the needle when creating new stitches. However, in Tunisian crochet she found that as long as she inserted her hook somewhat close to the space (you could go under two strands, only under one, or even in the hole between two stitches), the pattern seemed to work out fine. She found the Tunisian stitches easy enough to create, but she is wondering about her tension and choice of hook. She may try to go down a hook size, but this might just be her perfectionism acting up again.

Kathy, a first-time knitter (and crochet-aholic) making the Palisades Scarf, mentioned that she was having trouble remembering which way to insert her needle and wrap her yarn as she knit and purled. We tried sharing ways to help her remember, but we’d love to hear any hints you have too!

Danielle, our new crocheter making the Charcoal Neckwarmer, said that she has trouble knowing where to insert her hook. She’s used to knitting and the neatly ordered line of stitches on the needle telling you exactly where your next one should be.

I’m new to Tunisian crochet, and I’m making the Ocean Breeze Placemats and Coasters. I started with the tweedy coaster which has a color change on every left side, and I had trouble with the last stitch of my forward pass. It’s pretty easy to miss, and this caused me to lose stitches a couple of times.

Even though we all struggled a bit, we had fun challenging ourselves and trying something new. We have a bit more confidence now, and we’re going to keep plugging along. I’ll keep you posted as we get a little further into our projects.

We made some progress!

Watching us all fumble with our needles, hooks, and yarn reminded me of my first crocheting experience. The awkward feeling of the hook in my hand and the super tight stitches I created made it seem like I’d never get the hang of it. However, not long after that I was obsessively crocheting dozens of granny squares for no reason at all! With that, I’ll leave you with some advice from Adventure Time’s Jake the Dog.

What challenges did you experience when you first learned to knit or crochet? Visit us on Facebook and tell us how you overcame them!

Jen has chosen a delicious, juicy color for her Autumn Entrelac Shawl by Sheryl Thies. This luscious fiber from Red Barn Yarn is going to be a dream to work with! Jen is a pro at knitting entrelac, so she’s hoping those skills transfer over to crochet.

Chunky Peruvia Quick yarn by Berroco will be great for a first-time knitter!

Kathy will be using Berroco’s Peruvia Quick for her first knit project, the Palisades Scarf by Christine Marie Chen. She is hoping to give her finished scarf to her husband, and this color is a great choice!

We’re loving this color!

Danielle picked Cosma by Berroco for her Charcoal Neckwarmer. She may decide to leave off the buttons, and we all agree that this design would look stunning with or without them. Don’t you just love being able to personalize your own accessories?

The Beginner’s Guide to Tunisian Crochet Color Changes in this issue will be my best friend.

I chose two different yarns for my Ocean Breeze Placemats and Coasters, by Sheryl Thies, because I fell in love with the color combination. I’ll be using one hank of Creative Linen by Rowan in Leaf, a rich olive green, and one hank of Modern Cotton by Berroco in Del, a soft and sunny yellow. Since the Creative Linen is actually a DK weight instead of a worsted weight like the pattern calls for, I might have to adjust my hook size and stitch count to get the correct size.

Now that we have our yarn, we are ready to get started on our See it. Try it. Love it! projects. We’ll update you on our progress soon, so cross your fingers for us in the meantime! What do you think? Have we picked manageable first projects to help us learn our new skills?

All of us here at the Love of Knitting and Love of Crochet office have dedicated ourselves to learning crafty new skills. Each one of us had a specific skill or technique that seemed to both haunt and inspire us. Every time we would see a pattern featuring it, we would think to ourselves, “I NEED to try that!”

See it. Try it. Love it! was born when we realized that all crafters seem to experience this same urge to learn and create. Even if we never move beyond garter stitch scarves, something initially inspired us to pick up our needles and knit our first wonky creation!

We’ve picked the projects that will help us learn our new skills, and now we are in the process of picking our yarn. Sifting through the heaps of fabulous fiber in Jen’s office is always a treat. I love playing with different color combinations and textures, trying to find the perfect yarn for my project.

Piles upon piles of gorgeous yarn

We’ll keep you posted about the yarns we choose, but be sure to visit us on the Love of Knitting and Love of Crochet Facebook pages in the meantime! Tell us – do you find yarn selection to be a fun part of the process, or would you rather just grab some yarn and get to the crafting?

The school supplies are popping up in our local stores, and all of us here at the Love of Knitting and Love of Crochet office have taken that as a cue to put our brains into learning mode! We’ve mentioned the various skills all of us will be learning, and we’ve spent the past couple weeks perusing our recently published patterns to decide which ones will help us learn our new skills. It was tough to choose from so many inspiring projects, but each of us finally saw a design we simply had to try. We invite you to follow along with us on our stitching journeys as we See it. Try it. and (hopefully) Love it!

Jen is excited to try Tunisian entrelac. Our Fall 2014 Issue of Love of Crochet, on sale August 25th, features a super helpful Beginner’s Guide explaining the steps. Jen fell in love with the impressive Autumn Entrelac Shawl in the same issue, and she hopes to make this gorgeous accessory after practicing her Tunisian entrelac skills.

Kathy is the team member who came up with the idea for See it. Try it. Love it! because she has been eager to give knitting a shot. For her first knit project, she chose the fantastic Palisades Scarf from the Fall 2014 Issue of Love of Knitting. The stitch pattern is worked in chunky yarn with simple knit and purl stitches, so it’s a perfect beginner pattern.

Danielle knows the basics of crocheting, but she has never tackled a complete pattern. She has chosen the Charcoal Neckwarmer from our special Crochet More Issue because the small size will make it a quick and easy way to practice. The leaning shell stitches look more difficult than they actually are, giving you a lot of bang for your buck as you learn.

I’ve been fascinated by Tunisian crochet lately and, like Jen, I’m eager to expand my skills. I made a wonky swatch several years ago, but now I’m ready to give it another try and actually complete a project. To ease into Tunisian crochet, I’ve chosen the Ocean Breeze Placemats and Coasters from the Summer 2014 Issue of Love of Crochet. I’m a little nervous about the color changes, but this same issue has an awesome Beginner’s Guide to show me the way!

We hope our adventures in crafting inspire you to find a cool new skill, stitch, or technique and See it. Try it. Love it! along with us! Now that we have chosen our patterns, it’s time for us to gather our materials. We’ll update you on our progress on August 1st, but until then, visit us on Facebook or Twitter and tell us about your own learning experiences!

It’s no secret – all of us here at the Love of Knitting and Love of Crochet office love us some yarn! Every now and again we’ll take an hour or so to chat, craft, and share our latest works-in-progress. Some of us are knitters and some are crocheters, so it’s fun and inspiring to see what you can create if you trade your needles for a hook or vice versa.

Well, we’re taking that inspiration to the next level! Kathy, a crochet-aholic, and Danielle, a nifty knitter, will be swapping their crafting tools. Crochet will always be my first love, but I do a bit of knitting as well, so I’ve decided to try Tunisian crochet because it seems like a cool hybrid of the two. Jen, our Editor-in-Chief, has tried almost everything – except Tunisian entrelac! She’ll be picking up her hook to see how well her knitting entrelac skills transfer to crochet.

We’ll choose our projects next week and share them with you on Friday, July 18th. Visit us here on our blog or on Facebook to see what we pick and wish us luck on our new crafting adventures!